The Council of Typhon
by witchfingers
Summary: When he was 15, Folken slayed the dragon and became king of Fanelia. Many years later, however… History repeats itself. Or, does it? This time around, it's Van that's stuck on Earth, and with visions warning him of an impending disaster, he has to find the way to go back home and do something, fast.
1. Path of the Dragon

When he was 15, Folken slayed the dragon and became king of Fanelia. Many years later, however… History repeats itself.

Or, does it? **  
**

 _._

* * *

 **The Council of Typhon**

 _by witchfingers_

.

0

.

 _Faster, goddamnit._

 _Faster._

 _The forest ground is slippery, traitorous. It swallows the strength of his legs, exhausting him._

 _The shadow of the dragon looms over him- not bound by the laws of the ground, it slithers above him, through the treetops._

 _His own armor never felt like protection enough, but now, it feels like a coffin, it cages him in._

 _He runs, keeps on running, for his life._

 _He wonders when it is that he'll come to stop._

.

I

.

It was the most unsettling feeling, like static fuzzying around her, and it had been dogging her for a couple of days now.

She wasn't aware of it at first: she wrote it off as the shifting spring weather. It was sneaky to pinpoint, too: it hid in the subtle fragrance of the last cherry blossoms, in the gentle swish-swash of someone's brushing of the street with a straw broom, even in the icy and evanescent bite of the sparse raindrops of the sudden spring showers.

If only she could shake the feeling off. Unfortunately, once she isolated and identified it, she couldn't seem to get rid of it- as if the air around her was charged, and every single tiny hair on her body had to stand on edge to respond to it.

It didn't seem to be a constant thing, however. She began to notice it particularly when she went to work in the mornings, and then, when she returned home in the evenings. She began leaving her tracksuit on, rather than folding it back into her backpack like she normally did, instead opting to make the last run of the day the run back home, to speed up the being done with the weird feeling, which was taking a turn more and more towards the eerie with every passing day.

It had worked the first times, but, afterwards, The Feeling hung on heavily even long after she was back in her tiny apartment.

It was starting to wear her –Kanzaki Hitomi, Japanese, 26-years-old, P.E. highschool teacher– down.

.

II

.

It had been an especially long Monday.

 _All_ her 3 classes of P.E. students had had a _particularly_ overall disastrous performance, tripping and falling and having their morals pathetically low. Moreover, ever since early in the morning, The Feeling had been insistently nagging and gloomy; so that, at 5:30 pm, when classes were finally over, Hitomi was uncharacteristically eager to rush back home, have a warm, comforting shower and eat something sweet and possibly unhealthy, to maybe try and start the week on a better note.

Because of this, she finished putting away the sports equipment in almost record-time, and spent as little time as she could transcribing the day's scores and observations into the school's teachers' records. She went through her routine check to make sure everything was in order, and swiftly locked up her little office.

Today, just like every other Monday and Wednesday, she was the last teacher to leave, and she got to see a quiet, sleepy side of the school building that others rarely saw. She didn't dislike it at all, to see the halls bathed in the warm, dreamy, red sunset-light.

She put on her headphones, clicked on 'PLAY', hoisted her bag, and started jogging back home.

 _!_

The air was warm and the scents rose with the falling afternoon. A thought shyly appeared in her mind, that it was perfect to jog around in the park a bit, instead of going past it like every day. The thought suggested it would do her well, too, after such a shitty day like today.

 _!_

Her feet sank slightly on the grass. Her footfalls rhythmically took her around the paths. _This is just what I needed_ , she thought, pleased to feel the wind against her face.

Ah, running always made her feel alive.

 _!_

The Feeling returned without warning.

It took over with such strength that she could _feel_ it humming, humming deeply, and there was no sound, and she was weightless, and everything stopped… except for her.

A sudden blinding light exploded out of nowhere, swallowing everything around her, and she… she kept on running.

.

III

.

Footfall.

Footfall.

Silence.

Footfall.

She ran in silent slow-motion through the haze of blinding light, unable to stop her feet from moving.

.

IV

 _._

 _Faster, goddamnit._

 _Faster._

 _The forest ground is slippery, traitorous. It swallows the strength of his legs, exhausting him._

 _The shadow of the dragon looms over him- not bound by the laws of the ground, it slithers above him, through the treetops._

 _His own armor never felt like protection enough, but now, it feels like a coffin, it cages him in._

 _He runs, keeps on running, for his life. Faster, goddamnit, faster._

 _Faster._

 _A sudden light erases the shadow of the dragon. Like a mirage, a silhouette stands out from the blinding brightness, he can see it in the distance._

 _He has to stop: his legs can't carry him any further. And, suddenly, just like it came, the light is gone._

When his vision settles again, he's not in the forest any more.

.

.

.

V

.

She outran the light, the park appears dim in comparison now despite the embers of the twilight, but this is just a passing thought she gets right before she realizes she will inevitably crash against a man, who certainly wasn't there two seconds ago, before…

The light. The speed at which she was running lands them both painfully on the ground, and the strange kind of light armor he's wearing will leave some ugly bruises on her. Cursing under her breath, she's ready to give this stranger a piece of her mind, but then she takes in how he's heaving and looking around wildly, and all her words die on the tip of her tongue.

The Feeling is back, tenfold, and it is somehow making her aware of a certain shadowed spot between a grouplet of trees in the park. Coincidentally, that is also where the eyes of the stranger are fixed, as if he could somehow see something she cannot.

'Get away from here,' he rasps, and he sounds commanding despite the exhaustion in his voice.

'What?' she asks, confused, 'Where did you come from?'

He doesn't even spare her a glance, 'There's a dragon about to come out of those trees, so go if you value your life.'

 _A dragon?_

She eyes the trees with profound uncertainty, deepened by the fact that The Feeling tells her that that's exactly what is about to happen. She scrambles to her feet, and offers him a hand up.

'Come on, let's go,' she says.

For the first time, he looks at her, with dark eyes that assess her, first, and then question her. 'And who will stay behind to stop it?' he asks then, in a dead-serious manner that somehow offends her.

'Not you, that's for sure,' she replies, though not unkindly. He truly is worse-for-wear, and when he finally accepts her helping hand to stand up, he has to steady himself with the help of a sword he carries by his hip. She decides to put all questions on hold for later.

Lightning and thunder come from the trees, where a tear in the darkness announces that something is about to come through from somewhere. Hitomi's whole body is racked with goosebumps, her sixth sense feels like it will kill her.

'Someone will take care of it, now let's go,' she urges. He nods.

A cavernous roar and the sound of heavy limbs taking calculated steps brings them to movement.

.

VI

.

He was overtaxing himself, her trained eyes could read all the signs. And if it'd been in any other circumstance, she would be making him lie down to catch his breath and then stretch, but they couldn't afford that right then, as they ran across the park. Hitomi bore the curious, and sometimes disapproving stares of the people they passed by with a mixture of nonchalance and shame, but the man by her side didn't seem to mind at all, focused instead on willing his legs to take the next step, then the next one…

In reality, Hitomi didn't know where she was taking them. They soon found themselves at a busy crossroads, standing amidst crowds of commuters in varying stages of coming home, where the man placed his hands on his knees, slightly bent, and strove to catch his breath.

'Do you think it could follow us here?' she asked, glancing around; alert, but trying not to look paranoid.

He shook his head. 'Too many people'.

'Hey,' she said, trying to sound friendly, and not as psyched out as she felt, 'Let's go find somewhere quiet to rest a bit.' She caught his gaze- there, she read he was calculating, and unsettled, probably as confused as she was. Again, he nodded. He was deciding to trust her- very well. She appreciated it. Mostly because she wished to know what the hell was going on. Also, because sure as hell she needed to sit down as well. Every nerve in her body was on edge.

Every café or pub around was busy at that hour, so Hitomi chose the one with the dimmest lights she could spot nearby, and made her way to the furthest, most secluded corner available.

It wasn't near as secluded or far enough to make a tall, rugged man in armor go unnoticed, however.

She left him at the table and went over to the counter to get him the next best thing to the power drink they surely wouldn't have, which turned out to be lemonade.

When she returned, she sat opposite him. The silence was strange and uneasy: he looked out of the window at the passing people, with a regal expression that blanketed a lot of sadness.

She let him be until a waitress came over with a tall jar of ginger-and-mint lemonade, which she poured into two glasses. Hitomi gently pushed one towards him.

'Drink it up,' she said, 'It's gonna do you good, after all the running you've been doing. My name is Hitomi,' she offered, with a slight smile.

He turned, to look at her. He was probably around her age, and his eyes were soulful, with thick, dark lashes.

'I'm Van,' he returned, taking a sip out of the glass, and, establishing it wasn't not alcoholic nor disgusting, drank it down in a couple of gulps. 'Thank you,' he said quietly, with a slight tilting of the glass.

'No problem.'

It was starting to become awkward again, but then he asked: 'If you please… Hitomi… where _is_ this place?'

.

VII

.

'Well, it's, eh… maybe it's better if you tell me where you're from, first?'

'The kingdom of Fanelia,' he said. '… on Gaia.'

'Oh.'

He guessed from her face that she had never heard from either place. And he also guessed that, had she not seen him suddenly appear in that park through a haze of light, she probably would not have believed him.

Hitomi sighed. 'Well, you're in Japan now, a country on… planet Earth. If that's any good to you.'

 _It was_ , although the deep shock Van felt at those words did not translate with the blank expression on his face: he chose to keep his sudden wisdom to himself.

'I wonder how I wound up here,' he asked, instead, knowing full well that no one would be answering him.

'…chased by a dragon?' Hitomi offered.

'Yeah,' he said, cracking a slight smile for the first time, 'Not worth the trouble at all, I know now…'

'What do you mean?'

'That dragon and I, we were both after the same thing. I should've known when to quit,' he said, with a shrug.

Hitomi frowned. 'You're not making any sense,' she informed him.

Van shrugged.

Hitomi looked at him for a while, trying to get some information out of his looks without having to ask, but there wasn't much she could tell, other than how out-of-place he looked in his foreign clothes and foreign height, and how he must have had a long, rough day, which he was lucky to come out of with his life.

She deflated, feeling suddenly very low-spirited.

It was starting to get late. She was emotionally confused, her legs ached from mindless running, and there was a man from another… world? maybe? sitting across her, wearing some kind of medieval garb in the middle of a technologically lively 21st-century city, and otherwise alone… what was the right thing for her to do?

She didn't know anyone well enough in this city to call this late already, and her family lived in a city two hours away. And, anyway, who was going to believe her, about this guy?

And she couldn't just put him up in her place. He was a total stranger. Not to mention she didn't even own a couch.

'Hey,' he suddenly said, 'I uh, wanted to thank you. For everything you've done for me today.'

'It's no problem at all,' she replied. 'So what are you gonna do now?'

'It's a good question,' he said, and looked out to the black sky, 'Try to go back, I guess. Aren't there any stars here on… Earth?'

She explained, with a small smile, that there were, but one couldn't see them because of the bright city lights.

'That's a shame,' said Van, 'You people are missing out.'

.

VIII

.

Later that evening, she sat by her small round kitchen table eating a cup of instant noodles, and listened to the water running in the shower as if it would somehow bring to her answers, of any sort, to questions such as: why? how? for what purpose?; but mostly: _what was I thinking?_

In an effort to pacify herself, she'd brought out her tarot cards. Currently, however, they rested neatly as a perfectly piled deck, after she'd drawn _The Tower_ , and her resolve had faded and she'd decided she really didn't want to know anything else.

But now, perfect stranger Van from somewhere-not-Earth (honestly?) was in her shower, which she had had to teach him how to use, (because he'd never seen one before) and she was lending him some old clothes of her dad's she'd stolen as pajamas _ages_ ago, and his armor and his sword rested innocently in a corner, but they felt like they weighed the room down.

 _'Hey, Hitomi… would you give me a hand with this?' he'd asked, while untying a thick, braided leather cord that held one of the shoulder plates in place, 'There's a hook, back there, where I can't reach.'_

 _'Uh. Sure.' She'd approached with a fake kind of nonchalance she could keep up by repeating in her head: this is normal for him, this is no big deal for you, there are stranger things that could have happened… and so on._

 _She did note he seemed to be, if rather rough, a gentleman._

 _'Who does it for you, normally?'_

 _A mother? A sibling? A wife?_

 _'A servant'._

 _'…Oh.'_

Maybe she was asking the wrong questions? He appeared to be the kind of man who didn't hesitate to tell the truth, although maybe the kind not to tell the _whole_ truth to a stranger.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, Hitomi had rolled out for him the spare futon her parents had brought for when they came over, and he was looking like someone else entirely. She could now see how his wet hair reached the nape of his neck, and the tan hue of his skin. Her dad's old sweatpants were too short for him. His ankles were also tan… perhaps he came from a very sunny place.

'That shower thing… it's weird,' he commented, amused, 'but it's good.'

Hitomi felt like laughing, but she toned it down to a smile.

'I assumed you'd be pretty hungry, so I made a lot of noodles, though you don't have to eat them all if you don't want to…'

'That's fine,' he said, with a small smile, accepting the warm bowl she passed over to him with pleasant thanks, and taking a seat by the table, like her.

'So, uh, I hope it's not too different from… whatever you eat where you're from. You didn't land with the best cook in town, either, so…'

'You're really kind, you know?' he said, cutting into her trailing words, 'You didn't have any business with me, but you're still concerning yourself. I do hope I will be able to repay you some day.'

'Don't worry. I have the feeling you would've done the same for me.' She wasn't lying. She'd always relied on her keen sixth sense and her accurate sense of intuition, and Van gave her an ok-feeling.

'There is one thing I'd like if you don't mind. I'd like you to tell me about you, or the place where you're from.'

Van obliged.

Hitomi listened in wonder as he described Fanelia, a small landlocked kingdom nested in the heart of ancient forests, both threatened and protected by various kinds of dragons, where many different peoples and races dwelled. He recounted how it was renowned both because of her unparalleled sword-masters and her laureate poets, and how, since many years now, they lived in a steady peace.

'You know so much about Fanelia,' Hitomi mused, slightly ashamed, 'Hah, much more so than I know about Japan. You must really love it…'

He broke into an easy smile: 'I do. It's just part of who I am.'

Hitomi smiled, too. It was such an honest-

'I'm brother to the king, after all.'

.

IX

.

 _Oh god_ , Hitomi blanched, _he's a prince and I gave him instant noodles._

.

Van frowned.

'You've got nothing to worry about,' he said, 'In any case, it's not a big deal for me.'

'A big deal?'

'Yeah,' he said, with a casual shrug, 'I'm glad it's Folken who's king and not me, I'm not really cut out for stiff palace life, anyway.'

'I'm glad,' Hitomi said, relaxing visibly, ''Cause all I've got is a spare futon and some rice!' That made him laugh, which, in turn, made _her_ laugh. It was probably at that moment when the lingering awkwardness between them finally dissipated, and suddenly Hitomi felt pretty much at ease with the foreign visitor. She decided to tell him more about her country and her (rather uninteresting, in comparison) life.

At some point, he reached out to the deck of tarot cards, forgotten on the table between them, and casually drew the one on top, while asking her what it was. 'A romantic game?' he asked, with a mischievous smile.

Hitomi was puzzled. 'R-romantic? _What_?'

He handed her over the card he'd drawn, and Hitomi took a look. It was _The Lovers_. She laughed, understanding his confusion, but it didn't erase the blush that had taken over her face. _If that card called out to him does that mean that he… maybe and I…_ The glance she stole at him then was from a completely different perspective- _He's not half-bad looking. Oh god._

'It's not a game,' she chose to say, 'You play cards there in Gaia?'

A nod confirmed this.

'Here we do too, but these are called Tarot Cards. They are used to predict the future, and some people can make very accurate readings.'

'Can you?' he asked, amused.

'Yup, I'm pretty good.'

.

X

.

He convinces her not with words, but with a little hopeful gleam in his eyes, that this may be a good headstart for him, and that maybe it can clue him as to where to begin the search for the way home. It's a noble cause.

So she prepares the spread, a simple one. She's both intrigued and dreading what the cards will show to him. Everything is set, and she is handing the deck out for him to shuffle it, when it happens. For two seconds, The Feeling courses through her veins, cautioning her. She remembers drawing _The Tower_ , earlier.

Before his fingers touch the deck, she hastily draws her hand back.

He frowns. 'Did I get something wrong?'

She shakes her head, thoughtful. 'I got a funny feeling that doing this is not a great idea.' Before he can articulate looking crestfallen, she suggests:

'How about you ask for guidance? I'll shuffle, and you pick the card that calls out to you'.

He draws _The Ace of Serpents_. Somehow, to Hitomi it feels like it was inevitable.

'It's got a dragon,' he observes, also apparently not surprised, 'So? What's this?'

She ponders.

'Courage. It represents courage.'

.

.

.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note:_**

Hello! I couldn't resist the temptation of writing this story, because as far as I know there is none that deals with this 'what-if'.

For the purposes of this story, I will use the spelling of the name for the Greek goddess, Gaia, instead of 'Gaea'. Bear with me, you'll see why.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me if the characters are in-character so far! Please, drop me a line!


	2. Impassivity

_Chapter dedicated to **buay**! Danke dir für die +fav! :D_

.

.

.

* * *

 _Hitomi opens her eyes to a scene she is not part of: two silhouettes in the darkness of a large chamber whisper nothings in one another's ears. Why do they look so surreal? Why does it feel so hard to breathe?_

 _She doesn't want to know what is going on, so she turns to a large window. The night is black, and full of stars._

 _The window has no glass panes, and hot summer air breathes through, fragrant with scents she doesn't recognize. Looking down, she can guess streets and little rooftops. Feeling awkward, she tries to focus on the many things that don't seem to make any sense, like the grain of the stone or the lack of windowpanes, but nonetheless catches whispers, slivers of the conversation going on behind her._

 _The woman's voice is slightly accented, punctuated with odd inflections and endearing little growls. The man's voice is calm and deep, like an undercurrent. They are discussing, now a kingdom, now daily matters. Children's antics, palace gossip. How Van is still missing._

 _She spins around._

 _'Van?', she asks._

 _They stop talking, abruptly. The man stands up, cautiously comes towards her. 'Who's there?'_

 _But she can't answer: out of nowhere, flames consume the room. They burst violently forth, and Hitomi sees the room spin and spin, and it makes her horribly nauseous and anguished; and through the spinning and the burning and the shifting, rushing, fighting, through it all, someone is screaming 'Merle!' 'MERLE!'_

 _'MERLE!'_

And that's the very same scream on her lips when she wakes up.

.

.

.

Heaving, it takes a long while for her to realize she's trembling like a leaf. Her lost eyes soon find Van's, at a distance that is barely respectful, looking wild with adrenaline.

'Are you alright?'

'I think so.'

'Did that scream come out of my nightmares, or yours?'

'What do you mean?'

He hesitates. 'Merle is… she's family.'

Hitomi falls back onto the futon, not completely shaken out of the terrors of the dream. 'Mine. Definitely mine. Are you sure that's what she's called?'

'Yes.'

She looks up at the ceiling. Then she must sit back up, because, on the edges of her vision, she felt as if the flames would start again. 'Oh god,' she whispers, the screams still seem to ring in her ears.

'Something happened to her,' she says, at last.

.

When she finishes retelling her dream to him, recounting every minuscule detail she remembers, she realizes with a heavy heart that his eyes look troubled and distant: it's because he believes her.

'It's got to be true,' he says under his breath, 'You don't know who they are, damn, I haven't told you a _thing_ about them, yet it's Merle and my brother you saw, no doubt about it. Damn it.' His fists are clenched.

'I'm so sorry, Van,' she whispers, crestfallen. He oozes helplessness, but there's really nothing she can do for him.

'Forget it,' he says, ruefully, 'Let's go back to sleep. We can't do anything, anyway.'

.

.

.

The following morning, Hitomi felt awful. For the first time in the two years she'd been working in the school, she called in sick. Ironically, she was not sick at all, just very tired (she'd spent the rest of the dark hours of the night profoundly disturbed by the dream, and had only managed to effectively fall asleep after the dawn had broken.)

She was also not used to disturbing, lifelike, most-likely-premonitory dreams.

After muttering some general apologies for her absence to the school's receptionist, she returned to bed and fell back asleep.

She woke up again around midday, to find she was alone, something she welcomed too gladly.

It was Wednesday. A sunny, windy Wednesday. While the coffee brewed, she spared a thought to where Van might be off to. The day before, she'd taken the time to show him the basics of going around the city, so that he could explore the place and maybe search for clues on how to go back to his world. He'd been a very fast learner, and this despite the fact that, from what Hitomi had gathered so far, the place where he came from was rather like the medieval times of humankind. Locks, elevators and streetlights he'd understood without much care, and, though technology seemed to annoy him slightly, he wasn't too mindful about electronic billboards or cars or mobile phones.

Maybe there were things not too dissimilar in his world? Hitomi hadn't really had much time to ask yesterday before having to run off to work. And she'd hoped he'd been paying attention as to how to return to her place, (though he'd reassured her he was the kind of guy that never got lost) but when she'd come back home later, after work, she'd found him out in her small balcony, looking at the city lights, lost in thought.

Sipping her coffee, she wondered how much longer he'd be around. What if he could never go back home? She frowned, not liking the thought much. Somehow, it felt unfair for someone who appeared so… free? to have to be stuck in a cosmopolitan 21st century life.

 _I'm not gonna think about this_ , she told herself. _He's definitely going to find a way to go back._

 _._

 _… though, if he's still here by the weekend, we probably should go get him some present-day clothes or something._

.

'I saw you stayed home today,' Van said, 'It was because of the dream, wasn't it?'

'Yeah,' she replied with honesty, 'I couldn't really sleep after that.'

'It's my fault,' he whispered, 'If I weren't still here, you wouldn't be burdened with visions of my world'

'Well, there's no way to know that…'

'Honestly, Hitomi. I think I overstayed my welcome with you. I owe you a lot, and the least I want to do is bring you troubles.'

Van was really good at masking what he was feeling, but Hitomi detected some very subtle form of sulking there, and her temper flared:

'Are you _serious_? Listen, Van. I don't like this any more than you do, but I believe fate threw us together for a reason. Whatever it is, I feel like I'm… like I have to help you out with this. Why else would I dream about your people? It has to mean something!'

She quickly realized she was saying that for her sake as well as his.

.

.

The week passed otherwise uneventfully.

In all honesty, Van was probably the best other-wordly guest fate could have stuck her with: although he was usually quiet, the rough way he had with words didn't mean he wasn't polite when they talked; he was interesting to talk to; he helped her with the dishes even if from his awkward way she could tell he wasn't used to it, and used up most of his days to try and find a way to return; although how he did it, he never told her.

It was probably just like having a couch-surfer over, if she went by what her friends told her. And, if it came to happen that anyone found out about him, that's exactly what he was going to be: a couchsurfer. (…Although she didn't own a couch, probably her parents' spare futon qualified anyway). She was still working on coming up with a backstory for him, though.

On Friday, the last day of her working-week, she met for an after-office with some friends, like she usually did, and it was all in all pretty much normal, except for the fact that, when she returned home, there was a (by-then, familiar) tall man pouring over one of her books, presumably trying to make sense out of it.

'Get anything?' Hitomi asked, genuinely curious, peering over his shoulder. It was 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.

'Some things,' he said, off-handedly, 'Some scholars on Gaia know these scriptures.' Normally he wasn't this talkative, but Hitomi's kindness seemed to bring it out of him.

'You're really full of surprises,' she commented, and caught his little smirk. 'That's a great book, by the way.'

'Tell me about it?' he asked.

'Well,' said Hitomi, taking off her coat, and starting towards the kitchen to see what food there was, if there was any, 'It's the story of a hobbit, a little person, who has to destroy a very evil weapon, to save the world he lives in.'

Van quirked an eyebrow. 'That's all?'

'Well, no, not really, actually the book you've got there is the first part of three. The series is called 'The Lord of the Rings'…'

'Tell me more about it. It's not like we have anything else to talk about.'

Hitomi laughed. 'Yeah, you're right. It's just, it's a long and complicated story, and I don't remember it _that_ well… Oh. _Oh!'_ she exclaimed feeling both stupid and enlightened. Van looked at her with his best "explain yourself" expression.

'It's just, we could just watch the movie! I'm pretty sure you're gonna like it, I mean, _everybody_ likes it. Plus, you can tell me if that world looks like yours!'

Van had a remarkable poker face, although Hitomi doubted he knew what a poker face was. She smiled, apologetically.

'I'll just show you what I mean. We can also get some takeout, because rice is all there's in the pantry.'

'Uh. Sure?'

'Right!', she beamed, slipping her coat back on, and grabbing her purse and her keys. 'Wanna come?'

'Sure. Why not.'

Pondering on the peculiar customs of the people on Earth, Van went along.

 _._

 _._

 _Before playing the rented movie on her laptop, Hitomi looks quizzically at her long-term guest:_

 _'Van, I wonder... you seem completely unsurprised by everything I show you. Are you sure you'd never seen a computer before?'_

 _'Mmm.. yeah, pretty much sure,' he says._

 _'You go to levels of stoic I didn't know were possible...'_

 _'Well,' he muses, 'There aren't any dragons here. No leviships. There are plenty weird machines in Zaibach, from what I've heard, so nothing here so far has been a great surprise.' At her frown, he explains Zaibach is a country on Gaia, just like Fanelia or Asturia._

 _'You people seem to think that there are things that are impossible,' he tells her, 'But pretty much everything is possible on Gaia, I guess it works on different rules.'_

 _'Do you miss your home?' she asks, abruptly._

 _'Yeah. Yeah, a lot.'_

 _._

 _._

 _._

* * *

 ** _Couchsurfing_** _: the practice of sleeping overnight in the houses of friends or fellow members of a social network, esp as an alternative to staying in hotels,._


	3. Taste of Salt

_I want to thank **Tehetehe** , for +faving this story, and **dinkycharlie** and **Guest** for the nice reviews! Thanks, guys! :)_

.

.

* * *

The weekend started normal. Normally enough, at least, since the first thing Van did that Saturday morning was, after mutely accepting a cup of coffee (which he drank black and really hot), was ask Hitomi why Gandalf used no magic, if he was supposed to be a wizard.

'You didn't stay up trying to figure that out, right?' she asked in jest.

He quirked an eyebrow. 'Do I look like I would? I just think it's strange.'

'We all kind of do, I guess', she mused.

He accepted her answer, going back to drinking his coffee in his usual silence.

Hitomi chanced a glance at him: long, dark bangs shadowed his face, and his posture was relaxed but excellent, and probably the only thing about him that now and then reminded her that, where he came from, he was royalty. _Royalty_! Just the thought of it felt foreign, or distant, just as relatable as anything event in The Lord of the Rings. In that line of thought, she was sure that Van would probably be an Aragorn-ish kind of guy, when he was in the place where he came from. _Yes, most probably_.

When the shadow of thought passed, she realized with slight embarrassment that Van was staring back at her, slight amusement curling the ends of his lips. 'Gandalf got you troubled?'

A very stupid-sounding 'Uh?' escaped her lips before she could rewind her thoughts enough to remember what they had been talking about before her imagination had gotten creative. She masked herself with a small laugh, while she considered, honestly considered, if telling him what she was really thinking wouldn't be for the best. Maybe it would. After all, he'd been living in her apartment for a week, but what she really knew about the man was very limited.

She decided to give honesty a go.

'Actually, I was thinking that you kind of make me think of Aragorn.'

He _mmmmm_ -d. 'Perhaps.'

'I mean. The way you act, I keep forgetting you're… what? A prince?'

He nodded like he didn't really care about his princedom, but then a small smile crept into his lips again: 'The way I act?'

'Oh, you know,' she said, 'Not too… prince-ish-ly, you're, uh, a pretty normal guy. Don't talk with big words, don't try to boss me around… don't really mind having rice three days in a row… _stuff_.'

He laughed openly.

'This is only the side of me you've seen. But, anyway, you may be right. I'm not much cut out to be royalty, I'm glad I can leave that to Folken.' Saying that name made him smile warmly. 'That's my brother. That's his name.'

'Glad to make his acquaintance. Do you think I'd have to bow, if I met him?'

Van shrugged. 'I don't think that'd be required from someone from the Mystic Moon, you guys don't know anything about our customs anyway.'

He was so uncomplicatedly down-to-Earth, that in any other circumstance Hitomi would have been awed at him. She was, however, hung on something he'd said… 'The Mystic Moon?' she asked, inadvertently frowning.

Van had slipped. Early in the week, he'd decided it'd be better if he kept as much as he could private, but he'd not counted on how easy it'd be to talk to Hitomi- easy enough that he'd neglected reminding himself he wasn't on Gaia anymore. Now, he could either lie or he could be honest, but Van never really lied.

He sighed.

'It's how we call the Earth where I'm from.'

'The… wait…' Hitomi's mind suddenly was going so fast, she didn't bother to keep her thoughts to herself. 'You mean you knew all this time where you _are_? Where this is? And you didn't _tell me?_ '

'I didn't think you'd care this much,' he offered, suddenly feeling a very unfamiliar feeling, that was skirting, but not quite exactly, guilt. And he really couldn't make any sense out of it.

'Of course I… _care_ , so to say! Magic isn't real here, _dragons don't exist here!_ ' she said, her voice a notch over her normal tone of voice, 'Van, you came out of a blinding haze of light! Who knows what was on the other end! Another planet? Another time? Another _dimension_? I just thought you were as clueless as I, is all,' she finished, ruefully, 'I honestly thought we were working blind, here. That you had absolutely no idea where you were, just as much as I didn't know where the heavens you'd come out of. Damn…' she passed a hand through her hair, a rare gesture she only did when she was badly confused.

'I apologize,' he offered, unusually meek, 'I didn't know you'd put so much thought into all this…'

'Well, I _did_ ,' she said, a bit sourly, 'So, if you'd be so kind, maybe you can tell me what we're dealing with?'

'Yes,' he breathed, 'Gaia is another world. On the night sky, just like you see the Moon, we see the Moon and the Mystic Moon.'

'Two moons?'

'Yes. The Mystic Moon is this place. I believe that, if Gaia could be seen from the Earth, you would see a mirror image of what _we_ see, but that's not the case. I don't know why, though, I'm sorry.'

Hitomi thoughtfully considered this information. 'So it's like, another planet in another dimension.'

'In a way, I suppose. Now, this isn't common knowledge around Gaia. Only certain scholars know of the nature of the Mystic Moon and its inhabitants… I guess that just like I've wound up here, somehow, others have before me.'

Hitomi nodded- 'It makes sense'.

'Some left written accounts,' Van continued, 'Most of those scriptures are in the Royal Library of Fanelia, though I don't know the reason behind this, either. I always found the tales fascinating, and I read those I could find. This is why I can make something out of some elements of your writing. Why we can understand each other, however, is something I'd attribute to magic. I haven't come up with a better reason yet.'

'Magic sounds good…' Hitomi said, trailing off, processing, 'Can you understand anyone else? Other than me?'

'No', he said, shaking his head.

A thought crossed her mind, and she grabbed at it before it could dissolve into forgetfulness.

'Don't you feel lonely, then, being here?'

He gave her a strange look. The look of someone who was giving an unknown feeling entity of the first time, and wasn't liking what he was finding.

'I'd not thought of it like that before.'

It was Hitomi who felt oddly guilty, now, and she realized she had to say something.

'I'm sorry,' she hastened, 'That was a rude question. I didn't want to make you think sad things. Listen, I…' _Be honest with him_ , her mind supplied, _It's gotten you somewhere._ _Don't be just civil, get involved: you want to help him_. 'I'd told myself, if you'd not found the way back before the week was over, then, well, you'll probably be around a while longer. So, uh, I thought we could go find you some Earth-ean clothes. Then I can show you around town. We've got lots of time today, and it's a nice day out…'

Van felt his now-acknowledged loneliness rapidly shifting into a good kind of resignation.

'I'd like that.' He peered over her shoulder, out of the window. 'It might rain later, though.'

'Really? How can you know?'

A shrug. A slight smile. 'I just know'.

.

.

.

He looked really as though he'd been wearing jeans his whole life. As their post-shopping wanderings brought them close to the seaside, Hitomi noticed how Van kept looking at the blue horizon with an easy smile on his lips.

'What's on your mind?' she asked, as they, apparently of the same mind, walked towards the first steps of the long promenade.

'The ocean. I've only been to it once before, but it smells the same.'

She _hmmm_ -ed. 'Do you like it?'

'A lot,' he replied, 'Though it's a bit… overwhelming' –he shrugged- 'I'm happy to look at it from afar.'

After a while of walking in companionable silence, Hitomi thought of asking something she'd been wondering about for some days now. She found she had to raise her voice over the cawing of the gulls overhead, and the crushing of the waves below:

'Hey, Van? What have you been doing these days?'

He turned to her with a smile where sadness met resignation in equal parts: 'I meditated, at first, but I had too many questions and too little answers. Then, as I had nowhere to begin searching, I decided to see how the people of the Mystic Moon live. I thought, if I was sent here for a reason, I'd better explore every reason that came to mind.'

'Sounds logical,' Hitomi said, thoughtfully.

'Yeah. Well, I learnt a lot about your people, so that was good, but seeing how I'm still here… maybe not that useful,' he finished, under his breath.

'Have you tried going back to the park?'

'I did, once, but found nothing.'

'I think we should return,' she said, 'I _have the feeling_ we should. Maybe if we're together…'

'Maybe you're right', he sighed.

'We can pick the next part of the movie on the way, too. I-if you're up to it, that is,' she added, sheepishly.

He smiled, thinking in passing how he'd been pretty lucky despite being stranded in this strange world, in meeting this girl that could so easily put his heart at ease.

'I might,' he said, 'Depending on what happens next. Tell me something about it.'

'I, eh…' Hitomi thought for a while, trying to remember… 'I think it's the one with the talking trees…'

'Talking trees?' his eyebrows shot up high- 'All right, I think I want to see that.'

.

.

.

Inexplicably, the park feels darker than it looks.

Thicker grass, thicker scents, thicker shadows.

While Van disappears into the grouplet of trees where the dragon emerged, Hitomi tries to recall what The Feeling felt like.

But she can't. She's forgotten.

Time stretches, turning into half an hour, an hour. They minutely check every corner or situation within the park they can think of, going as far as running towards each other just like they did the day Van appeared. They check together, then they separate. They focus on feelings first, then sensations, then, lastly, visual details. Nothing yields anything.

Hitomi worries that she should have thought of returning here sooner. When any trace of anything that might have remained would have still been fresh. Van reassures her that's the first thing he did, the day after his arrival. Still then there had been nothing to be found.

Heavy hearts followed them home, but Hitomi still insisted on renting the movie.

.

.

.

 _He blinks an eyelid that opens upwards._

 _Sharply becoming aware of his surroundings, he inhales. The scent of it all becomes dissected into hundreds of different scents: information. He knows just how many rats and cats there are in the alleyway, which makes him hungry, and can identify every fluid, dried or otherwise, staining the soot-darkened walls. He smells the sea as though he were standing right next to it, but he knows it's a couple hundred meters away. He can tell, by the tinge of the air, what time of the night it is, exactly._

 _The sounds bring another host of information, but of a very superficial kind, that gives him only spatial grounding._

 _Van has never known it is possible to be this aware: everything has acquired new depths, ordinary things gain dimensions he could have never fathomed before. Everything feels cold to the touch, yet, within, his blood feels like it's burning._

 _Becoming aware of being aware slowly sobers him. He begins looking at the place around him with a sight that feels much more like his own: now, he takes in practical things, like how no door opens into this particular alleyway, or how there are no indicators of anyone living in the surrounding buildings._

 _Now, he takes notice of the way his claws grind slightly against the unforgiving concrete. He tastes the (comforting?) taste of poison in his mouth. Perceives the direction of the air currents on the scales of his back._

When he becomes awake –suddenly, for no real reason- his eyes open to a dark ceiling. It's still deep into the night, and the still silence brings to him the soft sound of Hitomi's breathing from across the room. A long while goes by until Van can bring himself to be himself again, and not, just as he had been until then, a terrifying dragon nested in the dark end of a dockside alleyway.


	4. Tales and Stories

_I'd like to thank **riotgirl2005** for the +fav, and **whitefeathers** and **pinkdynamite** for the very nice reviews! _

_Thank you guys! 3_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _A friendly reminder: Van and Hitomi are 26 in this story, so I'm projecting how their personalities would be if they were older._

* * *

.

That night, Hitomi dreams of fire.

.

.

.

Sunday dawns overcast. When Van wakes up, it's raining.

He knows enough of how things work by now, and he puts a kettle on the stove to make some coffee. He really likes it- coffee. It's a pity that it doesn't exist in Gaia.

'Van…'

Behind him, Hitomi is wrapped in a cocoon of blankets. A 'good morning' dies on his lips when he takes in her tired eyes, and the dark bags beneath them.

'I had another dream…' she says- funny how Van feels like he's forgetting something. Maybe he also dreamed of something, but who can tell? He certainly can't, and much less when her haunted look reveals that, impossibly somehow, her dreams must have been connected to him.

'Do you want to tell me about it?' he asks.

She lets her body tiredly drop down onto a kitchen chair.

'I saw a city burning. There was a castle, under the shadow of a great green tree. It also burned. When everything was fire, I began to burn, too. That's when I woke up. When I fell back asleep, I dreamt the same. Over and over. All night.'

Van hides his shock and the terrifying wave of cold recognition from her by turning around, and turning the kettle off.

'Damn…' he says quietly, under his breath. 'You should… maybe you should've woken me up.'

Hitomi's keen perception caught the hitch in his breath, however. 'What was that place, Van?' She knows he knows.

'Fanelia,' he says. Whispers. 'Do you think it's happening now?', he ventures.

'No. It hasn't happened yet.'

.

.

.

They sit, short of crammed, by the window-door that opens to her little balcony, watching the rain fall; both of them holding the coffee mugs close to preserve their warmth.

At Hitomi's request, Van is telling her more about Fanelia. He feels he owes it to her, for all her help and all her nightmares. He tells her tales of great warriors, and tales of dragons. He's saying that there's hardly any story in the realm that doesn't begin with a dragon when he realizes he's most likely never spoken this much to anyone before. Even before Folken got married, when they had dinner together almost every night, their conversations were pleasant, interesting, but not too wordy nor too personal. When they veered off the daily events in the kingdom, they usually discussed Fanelian lore, a topic both of them were passionate about: legends, folktales, old soldiers' tales and ancient poems. They knew every song that was ever sung on the castle halls and out on the streets, though they rarely sang if they were sober. The memory makes him smile.

'What's on your mind?' Hitomi asks, surrendering to her curiosity.

'What alcohol do people drink here? Spirits? Beer?'

'Many kinds, really,' she answers, slightly surprised.

Still smiling, Van tells her that they should 'have some, later, if it is fine with you'.

.

.

.

To close the Sunday on a hopefully cheerfuller note, they rented out the last part of the movie trilogy they were watching –The Return of the King– and Hitomi introduced Van to ice-cream (which both unsettled him and surprised him- oddly enough. He said it was too sweet for him) and Earthean alcohol, picking Western-style wine over beer and sake because that's what Hitomi thought a prince would like to drink better.

She herself had only tasted wine on seldom occasions, and she was rather excited. Excited enough, at least, to leave behind those awful dreams of destruction and fire.

When the movie ended (its extended edition, mind you) and after they'd discussed things like how Van wouldn't want Gandalf as a royal advisor, Hitomi's favor of fair-haired Legolas, and the (to Van's mind) suspicious lack of dragons; Hitomi took out a couple of glasses, which she wished could have been a tad fancier for wine, and fished a long while in her kitchen drawers for a corkscrew, which she'd seen only one and the previous tenant had left behind.

Van reacted unexpectedly again: he smiled quietly with the first sip, then laughed pleasantly with the second one.

'What's so funny?' asked Hitomi, feeling slightly self-conscious. _Did I do something wrong?_

Van tasted it again. Again, he smiled. 'Yeah, there's no doubt. It's just that I know this, from Gaia. I've tasted it before- the people from Asturia drink this. What's it called?'

'Wine,' Hitomi answered, blinking her eyes curiously.

'They called it vino, or something. Sounds kind of similar, too.'

Hitomi slowly smiled. 'What a weird connection between our places, don't you think?'

'Could've been worse,' Van mused, halfway between stern and jesting 'It definitely could've been worse…'

Hitomi _hmmm_ ed in agreement. And, as nonchalantly as she could manage, she asked: 'And do you like it?'

'Yeah,' Van smiled, warmed by memories of home, 'It's definitely better than that ice-cream thing from before…'

.

.

.

It's Van who, with his unique sort of rough natural grace, corks the bottle when it's 2/3 empty, and takes it back to the kitchen. In the short seconds he's gone, Hitomi wonders if he ever loses that cool composure he has, where nothing seems to get to him too deeply. Maybe it's just some kind of shield he puts up to keep the world at a distance he's comfortable with, but she knows she doesn't know him that well to be able to tell. She idly recognizes it's probably the wine that brought forth these thoughts: she didn't even know she had them.

When Van's back, he regards her with a tiny smile of amusement.

'Not too used to drinking, are you?'

Hitomi sheepishly admits she's not. 'And you?'

'Not used to it, no,' he says, shrugging, sitting back on the cushion they placed by the window again, 'But I think I hold it better than you.'

She sticks her tongue out at him. His little smile becomes a bit like a _'see what I mean?_ ' smile, but not an annoying one. They sit in silence for a long while, looking at the setting sun.

'We did this, back home, my brother and I,' says Van, his eyes never leaving the view of the sky.

After a respectful while, she quietly asks: 'What's he like?'

'He's…' the words don't come easily, and he realizes it's because he's never had to describe his brother before. 'Kind. Gentle. Wise.'

 _He loves him_ , Hitomi concludes with a happy smile, and her thoughts drift to her own little brother, studying abroad. 'You must miss him…'

Van's eyes are full of sunset, and they catch the fanning colors with their strange shape and foreign russet-colored hue. 'Hmm. Well, he's got his duties, and I've got mine. We don't spend much time together now.'

'Tell me more?'

He looks at her, slightly over his shoulder, with an unreadable look.

'Times like these… we usually ended up remembering folksongs. I can show you, if you want. A song.'

' _You_ sing?' Hitomi asks, caught by surprise.

He looks coolly nonplussed. 'Everyone in Fanelia sings.'

Although that makes perfect sense, she hadn't thought he had the type, but… _Then again, for the last days he's told me so, so many tales and stories. And I listened, like caught in some kind of spell_.

'Please, sing. I'd love to listen.' And, as an afterthought- 'You're great at telling stories, you know?'

He smiles a collected smile that _doesn't_ tell her that no, no one's told him that before, probably because he never bothers much to talk to anyone who would be telling him such things.

'Thanks.' The song he chooses is one his father used to whistle when he was distracted enough not to notice he was whistling, a very not-kingly habit. It easily became his favorite song, after his father passed away.

'It's called _The Dragon of Green-the-Glen.'_

The song is in Fanelian- a melodious, raspy language. She can make sense of it, and understands it's about a boy who goes into the forest alone, looking for a dragon. He wants to kill it, then bring its heart back home to impress a girl he likes. But after killing the dragon and returning home, the girl is sad, because she would have rather had the boy's heart than the dragon's. Before the song sounds like it's finished, however, Van stops.

Hitomi looks at him, blinking slowly: 'Does it really end there?'

Van shakes his head. 'No, but the rest is sad. I usually don't sing it.'

'How sad?'

'The dragon's family puts a curse on the boy. He is drafted as a soldier and sent away to war, where he dies in battle. The girl then dies of a broken heart.'

She frowns. 'That's terrible'.

'Hmm. Yeah. But that's life, anyway.'

.

.

.

Later, Van pushes his futon to be near the window.

When she almost-knows it's because he must like to wake with dawn-light, she thinks with a frown that this situation can't go on like this much longer. Some kind of solution has to be found, otherwise, she feels something sad will happen.

'I shouldn't be doing this…?' Van asks, confused- he mistakes the thoughtful look on her face.

'Oh, no, do,' she says, 'I'm just sorry you won't see the stars from there.'

.

.

.

 _There is the taste of earth and coal in her mouth._

 _Hitomi feels the crisp ground under her feet- charcoaled twigs and blackburnt tree-logs. It's hard to breathe through the air thick with smoke, she brings a tattered sleeve to her nose, but there she takes in the smell of ash, engrained in the fabric._

 _She then knows this place has been like this for months now._

 _Looking around, bewildered, at the disparaged wasteland, she forgets that she had, initially, been looking for something._

 _In the distance, far beyond shattered tree stumps upon shattered tree stumps, she sees great black shadows running from the fire, going towards the fire._

 _._

The alarm clock starts her awake.

She lies there, looking up at the ceiling, calming down her beating heart and the visions of destruction.

 _It hasn't come to happen yet_ , she thinks. Somehow, she just knows- just like she knows these are not dreams at all. Not dreams, but visions.

She suppresses a sigh and sets out to make some tea.

Outside, again, it's raining.

.

.

.

She took the bus to work. Looking out of the window, she saw fire, consuming fire, hidden amongst the heavy downpour.

 _What a depressing way to start the day…_ she sulked.

Not really used to taking the bus, she arrived earlier than she normally did. Still dragging the weariness of a bad night's sleep, she sluggishly made her way to her little office, focusing exclusively on the classes she had to teach that day, and the activities she'd choose for the students to do indoors. Of course she'd have all the classes she could in the indoors gym, which was almost as having normal, outdoors classes. She inspected the weekly schedule that had been dutifully updated on the teacher's board. Hmm. The theater group had booked the gym for the last two periods. Shoot.

A voice behind her, that belonged to the school nurse (whose office was next to hers), greeted her pleasantly. 'What a day, huh?' she commented.

Prying her eyes from the teacher's board, Hitomi wished her a good morning too, and scowled at the rain. 'And my last two periods will have to be in a classroom…'

'Oh dear,' the nurse articulated in solidarity. And then, she commented: 'I saw you on the promenade on Saturday... I didn't come say hi because you were with a guy, and I didn't want to intrude. But hey, who was he?'

'Oh... He's a friend... From abroad.' (Hitomi was a lousy liar, so she was thankful that she'd had the foresight to think of a convincing story beforehand.)

'Really? How cool! Where's he from?'

'Finland'. (A story that would explain what a notoriously foreign man was doing in her apartment. And why no one could understand him. And why she couldn't really tell when he would leave.)

'... Oh my. That's exotic…'

Waiting for the bell to save her from more questions, yes, those were sure to turn out to be the longest five minutes in Hitomi's life.

'And how did you meet him?' the nurse asked.

'Couchsurfer,' she replied, trying to appear nonchalant rather than fidgety.

'Are you for real? I didn't know you did that! How cool is that!? So he's staying at your place?' –and, without waiting for confirmation- 'How long is he staying?'

'Well I... Ehm.. he's not sure yet.'

'Right... Well, as long as he doesn't annoy you...', the nurse mused, conversationally. Hitomi usually liked her well, but today, today she wished she would just drop it. _Wishful thinking_ , she thought. Instead, she replied:

'Yeah. We get along pretty well, though. I actually don't mind having him around.'

'I wouldn't either… I mean he did look pretty handsome…'

Hitomi just stared. She wasn't going to have this conversation. She really wasn't.

'It's idle, anyway. He'll be gone soon, so it's not use seeing him like that. Would you excuse me? I'm gonna try to talk to Mrs. Aiko, of the theater group…'

'Oh, of course! Hurry, before the bell rings!'

.

.

.

Rainy days are the worst, in her opinion.

They transform her usually competent high-schoolers into little children, and she is time and again metaphorically demoted from PE teacher to kindergarten teacher; as she unsuccessfully tries to goad them into learning the theoretical aspect of field sports required by the curricula- which they never want to do, which she anyway hates to teach, and which no one really cares about, after all. Rainy days are dreadful days.

She gives her students in the last period a stupid group assignment designed to distract them for at least ten minutes from being unruly 14-year-olds. Ten minutes that will stretch into twenty, or more, if she's lucky, and by the time the bell rings to go home they won't have done much, but at least she won't be going back home with a headache. Or, rather, with too strong a headache, since she's had one since midday.

She stands up, walks towards the window. The rain falls thick, relentless.

A vision flashes for just a second- and then it's like she's traded fire for water. She sighs.

A patch of a conversation drifts her way. It's a group of students –male students, all with crooked ties and untucked shirts, none who wants to be there (but neither does she, so how to judge them?), and one's saying:

'Have you guys heard about warehouse 11?'

None answers like they've heard about it, and the kid goes on: 'It's a warehouse the eastern district. They say it's possessed… I heard that the owner made a pact with a demon, and…'

'…and maybe you want to share this tale with the rest of the class, Mr. Tanaka?'

Sometimes, Hitomi marvels herself, at how much she sounds like her old schoolteachers.

'Ms. Kanzaki, uhm… it's just a rumor, you know.'

She eyes him mischievously. 'Perhaps. But who knows, if you ever check it out and the demon comes after you, the theory of track running might just save your life.'

The class roars with laughter. Good.

A small victory- maybe she's not that much like her old teachers, after all.

.

.

.

There is a tiny seashell on the kitchen table when she comes back home, and Van's reading again. She wonders if he's made any progress.

'Had a good day?' Hitomi asks, toweling her rain-sprinkled hair.

Van looks up from the book- his dark, unusual lashes frame the veiled frustrated look in his eyes.

'I had a weird feeling today,' he says, simply, 'Like I should go back to the seaside.'

Hitomi's brows arched. _A feeling… a sign, maybe?_ Surprise was all she could identify within her.

'And? Was there anything…?

He shakes his head.

'Seashells. Just that. '

.

.

.

* * *

 **A/N**

 _\- Of course Van drinks- he's 26! :D Plus it's my story, no sexy dragon-rider-king is going to not-drink, hahaha._

 _\- They rented the movies because it's Japan, and I believe they're more legal than us._

 _\- The song "The Dragon of Green-the-Glen" doesn't exist, but if you want to feel very sad, imagine it's sung to the tune of 'Fatal', that song Folken always whistles…_

 _I'm rewatching Escaflowne with my boyfriend. He says he's team Allen. I'm confused. Wth.  
_

 _…_

 _Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this story! The pacing, mostly: what do you think about it?_


	5. Of Guidance through the Darkness

_**whitefeathers** , you and I are of the same mind… Shoutout to **HanaLiatris** for the beautiful review and encouragement!  
_

 _._

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _This is Earth._

 _Van knows primarily because of the scents: nowhere in Gaia smells this boxy, this industrial, this hopeless._

 _Yes. The scent of hopelessness is so uniquely Earthean._

 _Late-night tinged wind clashes, unbound, with his skin, having travelled uncountable miles over the vast ocean. Some smells it brings he has no name for. Some feel tropical and alluring, some are dark and dank and some are so, so human. He can easily know what wind caressed the board of a cargo ship, and what winds were air breathed by hundreds upon hundreds of city-dwellers._

 _This night is almost silent. Only the murmur of the sea gives him some sort of spatial awareness, otherwise, as he stands on the roof of that nondistinct building, he feels as though he were flying._

 _Heavy reptile wings flex, yearning. But he somehow knows he has to wait. He knows he has to avoid being seen yet. And so, he looks up to the sky through dragon eyes, and stares longingly at the waxy sickle of the Moon, and the waxy sickle of Gaia behind it._

 _._

 _._

 _._

It's late morning when Van tentatively shakes Hitomi awake.

When she finally sits up, hair sticking up, her tired eyes find him and pin him with a vacuous, sleepy, questioning gaze.

Uncomfortable, he shrugs. 'I don't know if it's my place, but I thought you had to work today.'

'Work…' she repeats, processing. Then her eyes widen, and suddenly she's awake, haste and dread filling her stomach.

'Oh shit,' she rasps under her breath- she, who rarely ever curses.

Van wisely steps out of her way as she scrambles around getting ready, taking time she doesn't really have to reopen the door after she's slammed it shut in her hasty exit, to locate him with her eyes and breath, 'Thanks for that, Van'; and then disappear.

.

.

.

That day, after work, Hitomi walks back home, almost dragging her feet, but needing time to sort her thoughts out. First things first, next to everybody's asked about her foreign couchsurfer- the nurse has been gossiping. She spent the better part of her day polishing and refining Van's story-cum-alibi; and now, the official version is that his wallet, where he kept his passport and papers, got stolen, and it will take some time until the Finnish embassy can reissue them. It would also seem that she's been taking an online Finnish course, and that's why they can communicate almost exclusively.

Hitomi sighs. She only prays that no real Finn will appear and sink the ingeniously crafted backstory.

Her second concern is less bittersweet. The nightmares she's been having lately are starting to take a toll on her. She shouldn't have overslept, this morning. Yet she did. She can't afford to let this mad situation affect her life, but it seems that with every day that passes, and with every nightmare that shows her a new glimpse of a future, razed Gaia, she plunges deeper and deeper into an inescapable sinkhole.

And then there's Van, inscrutable Van, who has a sadness around his eyes and a steel will to not become broken.

 _I wonder_ , she thinks, c _ould we have been friends? If we'd met somewhere else, or under different circumstances… I mean… if I wasn't all he has here… could we still have been friends?_

She likes him well enough, she guesses. He's collected, and polite. A great storyteller.

 _Well_ , she muses –soon, now, she'll be back home- _I guess I'll never really know._

.

.

.

Van was halfway through the book. She didn't notice until he'd set it face down on the table.

When asked about it, he just shrugged: 'I don't know. At some point it started making sense.'

'Well, now at least you won't have to rely on looking for clues to not bore yourself to death,' she joked.

A blatantly unamused glare told Hitomi exactly how Van felt about that. Never one to enjoy annoying people, Hitomi veered towards something that had been on her mind- she's also been giving it some thought on the way back home.

'I couldn't help thinking… what _exactly_ made you go to the coast yesterday?'

'I told you. A feeling. A presentiment. I don't know…' he stood up, and walked over to the window to look out at the city. 'It was something weird I'd never felt before. I thought I should as well check it out.'

'Yeah…' she trailed off, the gears in her mind turning in a sluggish way, as she tried to grasp an idea, which belonged to a kind of ideas she wasn't too used to entertaining.

'And the feeling… did it tell you that you had to go somewhere _here_? … In the city, I mean.'

Van nodded.

'This might sound crazy…' she started, and stopped there, considering just what _kind_ of crazy it was. The ridiculous kind to anyone but her, probably. But Van turned around to look at her, leaning against the glass and crossing his arms over his chest. _Well? I'm listening_ , his posture seemed to say.

 _There's no escaping from it now, right?_ Hitomi asked herself. That made her feel slightly better about it.

'Have you ever heard of dowsing? It's a way to pinpoint directions.'

Van shook his head only once, and very regally.

'I just thought… How about we try it? My grandma told me about it, but I've never done it before… Eh… it occurred to me when you were talking, and I don't think it's a coincidence-'

'-We'll try it,' Van said, artfully cutting her before she could start a ramble born out of self-doubt, and a small smile appeared on his lips: 'It's not like we have anything to lose, right?'

Hitomi beamed.

'Right!'

.

.

.

The map of the city is spread on the living room floor, and both Van and she are sitting crosslegged before it. Hitomi is absent-mindedly chewing on her lower lip, wondering where and when to begin.

Rays of sunset pour through every window in the apartment. As Hitomi takes off the amulet necklace that used to belong to her grandmother, the vibrant orange light catches in the small stone that dangles from it, and makes it appear aglow. Certainly, it is possible to think it might be magical. In a passing thought, Hitomi asks the spirit of her grandmother to help her out.

Unbeknownst to her in her concentrated haze, Van is coolly studying her. He's good at reading people, and can interpret the little signs in her posture that tell that she's not calm.

'Don't be nervous,' he eventually offers, 'You don't need to do this if it's stressing you out.'

She looks up at him with unsure eyes. 'I don't really know how to start.'

He smiles, and there's experience behind that. 'Then just start.'

'Right,' she says, appeased. Her hand suspends the pendant over the center of the map, where it dangles perfectly still, without even oscillating with her pulse.

Suddenly, as if someone was making her _know it_ , it becomes clear to her that she won't find anything if she continues like this, because she's not the one that's searching.

'Put your hand over mine,' she instructs Van, 'Focus on what you want to find. If you remember what it looks like, picture it in your mind. Think of that, only. Every other thought doesn't matter at all now.'

Seconds pass, and time and silence make a certain sensation of foreboding grow to be almost tangible. And then, after what feels like an eternity, right before their arms start to feel heavy with their own weight, the pendant starts to oscillate.

Very slowly, and very gently, too, but steadily, it guides them to circle over an area by the docks.

.

'It _is_ by the coast,' Hitomi says, with a relieved smile.

Van blinks several times. 'It actually worked…'

.

.

'Van! Wait!'

Van stops, looks over his shoulder- 'What?'

'You can't go _now_! It's night already!'

Impatiently, letting her know he thinks she's making him waste time, he turns around to face her.

'If I wait until tomorrow, I might not find anything.'

'I still don't think it's a good idea,' she says, giving entity to a feeling in her gut, that tells her that darkness won't aid him with the search. _I didn't think he'd be headstrong like this_ , she thinks, placing her hands on her hips. She looks at him and evaluates his defiant stance and his annoyed eyes.

'You're entitled to your thoughts,' he says, briskly, starting to turn around to leave.

'Wait…! Van! You've got to do this tomorrow. How about we do another dowsing test in the morning, before I go to work? Now we know it'll give us direction. Don't go now. Trust me.'

Once again, he looks at her over his shoulder. For a short while he considers her words.

'All right. I'll trust you.'

.

.

.

She feels the warm reassurance of the guiding stone against her heart as she falls asleep.

That night, she gets a break- a deep, dreamless sleep.

.

.

.

Late the following morning, Van is breathing in again the healthy scent that hangs from the sea-breeze, sitting on the low concrete wall that lines the promenade, and looking out to the horizon. For a couple of hours now he's been searching around, but everything looks as ordinary as it might for someone who is not from Earth.

He breathes in, trying to become focused. _It's no good getting annoyed. I still have a long way to go, and Hitomi's prediction today also said this is the right place._

The horizon is so very perfectly flat, he gazes at it a while longer, wondering how long the memory of it will last once he returns back home to the crooked horizonline of valleys and mountains, so often eclipsed by the boughs in the forest. He's not really aware of this, but he distractedly begins to whistle _The Dragon of Green-the-Glen_.

Would Hitomi like Fanelia? Ah, but he'll never know that. What he knows is he _has_ to go back, before her direful visions become reality. Although he doesn't know against _what_ precisely, he has to warn Folken- they _must_ be ready.

This thought makes him get back on his feet, and start towards the part of the area he hasn't checked. He heads for a row of warehouses that look rundown and rusted, and speculates about what he might find inside, if he does find anything at all.

.

.

.

Hitomi ignores The Feeling at first -it's been so long since she felt it, that she mistakes it for a haphazard draft of wind the first time. The second, for a too-strong wave of the scent of the freshly mowed grass by the track field. But the third time, she starts to think it's unusual that the little hairs on her arms stand, since the day is pleasantly warm, and then it dawns on her what that actually means.

 _!_

Immediately she becomes alert and uneasy, and loses track of the student whose long jump performance she was monitoring. When the kid asks about her progress, she has to make something up that will pass as an excuse.

And Hitomi is a dreadful liar.

 _!_

The remainder of the class passes like that, with her being edgy and unfocused. During the following class, it only gets worse, and at some point she reaches for the comforting, familiar shape of her pendant…

The stone's warmth is the warmth of a living thing.

Without a forewarning sign or feeling, a vision replaces the track field, her students and the school, and instead…

 _She sees a dark space, where a door that opens from the outside frames a silhouette- a man holding a gun. The light bathes the contents of the room: wooden crates and boxes, and another silhouette._

 _'Put your hands up, or I'll shoot,' the man by the door says, 'Good. Now step where I can see you…'_

 _Yes, Hitomi knows it's Van even before she sees him put his hands up and walk into the projected light._

.

She comes to, to a circle of concerned students hovering over her. _Did I faint?_ No, she's sitting on the floor.

'Ms. Kanzaki, are you okay…?' one of them ventures.

'I…' she looks around, floundering. 'I… there's been an emergency… I have to leave at once…' She stands up, and her eyes locate one of her more responsible students.

'Ms. Kamino, would you please inform the headmistress? The rest can go. I'll see you on Friday…'

.

.

She steps off the bus and looks around, helplessness taking over. The dockyards are enormous: countless rows of hangars and warehouses built upon a seemingly endless concrete lot. The scent of the sea wafts uncomfortably.

 _Oh God_ , she frets, _how on Earth do I find him now…?_

 _!_

Desperate circumstances merit desperate measures, or rather, ideas, and she pulls off her pendant and dangles it before her, as she earlier dangled it over the map. Her mind's eye sees Van, with an amount of detail that's ridiculous. _Please let me find him_ , she repeats in her mind, _please let me find him_.

Eventually the pendant oscillates, and, choosing to trust it without question, she begins to sprint in the direction it signals.

.

.

She irrupts into a most peculiar situation.

There is Van, facing opposed a middle-aged man with a disdainful expression on his face; and two stern police officers.

Van, arms crossed over his chest, looks regally disgruntled, albeit imperceptibly taken aback to see her there. The middle-aged man, who is dressed in jeans and sneakers and a suit jacket, briefly regards her with indifference. And one of the police officers, taking off his shades, asks in a stately manner:

'Who are you, Miss? And what are you doing here?'

'Oh we… we just agreed we'd meet up here… Is there any problem… -she reads the officer's name tag- … Mr. Iyamoto?'

'You know this man?' the other policeman inquires- 'The owner of the premises,' he says, indicating the middle-aged man, 'Found him trespassing on his property, but so far we haven't made ourselves understood. Would you like to clarify this situation for us, ma'am?'

Hitomi blinks, looking like a deer in the headlights right before the car runs it over. 'A-ah, yes, certainly. Excuse me,' she says, and turns to Van. With her best conversational poker face, she asks him:

'Are you alright…? I saw a vision… I saw someone pointing a gun at you… What on Earth is going on here?'

Van's eyes widen enough to let her know he's astounded: 'You _saw_ that…?' …but then, he realizes that might not be the best moment to discuss it. He fills her in, in a heartbeat- the man caught him in a rundown warehouse he was checking out, pointed a weapon at him, made him come out, and shortly after, the police arrived. He'd judged it would be better not to cause a scene, since he gathered those were the authorities, even though he couldn't understand a word they said to him.

Impatiently, the middle-aged man –now revealed to be the owner of the warehouse- urges the policemen to take the corresponding disciplinary action and let him return to his affairs.

'Ma'am, if you please, tell us about this man. What is your relation to him?'

'He's my couchsurfer,' she answers, as businesslike as the fear of getting caught permits her, 'He's from Finland.'

They nod. They believe her. 'Could we see his papers?'

'I don't think you can, I'm sorry for that. He got his passport stolen last week, and he's still waiting for his embassy to send him the new one. But I can vouch for him,' she says, drawing her ID from her purse. Again, the officers check it and seem to believe her.

'Very well, Ms. Kanzaki. That over with, you realize your friend was trespassing on private property, right? Now, we can't take him in for questioning or let him go with a warning if we can't get through to him. Do you think you could ask him some questions, for us?'

'Certainly, yes.'

'Then kindly ask him what he was doing inside this man's warehouse.'

'Stealing, most likely,' the owner pipes in, '…or worse, contributing to those accursed rumors of ghosts and whatdoIknow. It's punks like this that bleed the business out.'

Both officers and Hitomi look at him while he speaks, but tune him out.

'They want to know what you were doing in there, Van…' Hitomi tells him.

'Well… try telling them… let's see. Tell them it's something people do normally, where I'm from.'

She nods. _That's a good one_.

'He says, it's normal in Finland for people to explore abandoned buildings. I mean… he thought it was abandoned…'

The officers say 'oh' almost in tandem.

'Sir,' one of them asks the owner, 'Is there any sign that states it's private property?'

'It's obvious, isn't it?' the owner retorts, 'Every single warehouse here belongs to somebody.'

'You've heard the lady, sir,' the other police officer intervenes, thoughtfully, 'This man thought it was an abandoned building. What exactly are the conditions of your premises? If they are approved for use for commercial purposes, then we would very much like that you show us around, to ascertain that their current state of preservation complies with the regulations… Just, procedural matters, you understand.'

'I understand,' the man says, through his ground teeth, glaring venomously at Van, who is looking at the exchange with a curious gleam in his eyes that clearly says he wishes he knew what was going on.

One officer addresses Hitomi: 'Ma'am, tell your friend that he's free to go. But please, remind him that those practices are not allowed here.'

'I will sir,' she says, with a little, relieved smile.

'Good day, then, ma'am.'

.

.

'Thanks.'

They had been walking a long while in silence before Van said that.

'Don't worry about it,' Hitomi reassured, with a small smile, 'I'm just glad nothing happened to you.'

Van sighed, running a hand through his hair: 'I am… I apologize for that.'

She laughed.

'Apology accepted, but not really needed. You were doing what you had to… I just thought you could be in danger. I'm glad I came.'

.

'What were you going to do, if they tried to take you to the police station?'

Van averted his eyes.

'I hadn't thought it out that far…'

.

.

'Van… could you… did you find out anything?' she asked, at some point. Not having thought about it, she was taking them the way back home, although it felt strange doing it on a weekday shortly after midday.

Van reached for the back pocket of his jean, falling into a slower walk; to, eventually, stop. Hitomi stopped too, looking with curiosity at the object that he held between his index and thumb. It was glossy, about the size of a big coin, and shaped like a spearhead. It was, in short, a scale.

Hitomi's eyes widened when realization hit, and when they met Van's, his were collected, impenetrable.

'The dragon,' she breathed.


	6. Frost

_The site hasn't let me read the reviews yet (I'm dying to! Gaahhh)... but I'm sure they were awesome! Thank you!  
_

* * *

 _._

 _._

The distance between the docks and Hitomi's apartment is great, but they start walking it anyway. With Van deep in thought, Hitomi gives leave for her bewilderment regarding everything that has happened that day so far to take over.

 _Dowsing worked two… no… three times… I saw a vision of the near future of something not Gaia… and also during daytime… My God… What is going on…? What exactly is about to happen, for all these things to be going on just now? And… and I lied to my students. I left work just like that._

 _What on Earth am I doing…?_

She is so lost in thought, she doesn't realize that at some point Van started choosing the turns and roads, and that eventually it was him setting the direction.

When she comes out of her reverie it's because she takes in the familiar design of the park where she and Van first met. It's a weekday, and therefore almost empty. 'Van…?' she asks, puzzled.

He shrugs. 'It's still early. I thought this would be a good place to talk.'

She nods, a small smile softening her confusion. They find a secluded spot on the grass under the manicured, gossamer branches of a weeping willow. The noon-sun filters through the leaves, and prints patterns of shadows on the grass below.

'Hey,' Van starts, and by the way his lips purse she knows he's slightly abashed, 'How… Do people here ever go barefoot? I mean, is it offensive or something?'

Hitomi really doesn't want to laugh, but a small laugh that should convey endearment does betray her.

'To some, maybe, but there's no one around now, is there?'

'Good,' he says. Almost reverently, he takes off his boots and sets them aside. Then he falls back onto the grass, and sighs.

'I missed this. I really missed this.'

Hitomi smiles. Pensively so. 'I wish I knew how to help you better, Van…'

Instead of wasting his words on reassuring her with used or awkward phrases, Van says: 'Tell me how you knew where to find me today. Tell me what you meant when you said you saw me.'

An urge suddenly strikes her, to fall on her back on the grass next to Van. But the thought inexplicably makes her feel self-conscious. She hugs her knees instead, and rests her chin on them.

'I was teaching my class, like always. Then, suddenly, the track field was gone, and I was seeing you inside a huge room full of crates. A door suddenly opened, and there was a man, pointing a gun at you. When I woke up, I knew I had to find you… It felt like a dream, but somehow I knew it was happening, or right about to happen…'

'I see…' He sighs. 'Thank you. But I would have found a way out of it, eventually. You didn't need to concern yourself like that.'

'But Van!' she snaps, turning to look at him, 'I thought you were in danger! The man had a _gun_!'

'I've had it remarkably worse,' he says, briskly, 'I don't want my search to take a toll on your daily life.'

Wishing he wasn't so inscrutable, Hitomi sighs. 'I think you would've done the same for me,' she states, with a finality that is unusual in her.

Silence is the mark of Van's conceding.

.

'Here,' he says, after a while, wisely changing topics, and tosses the dragon's scale at Hitomi, 'It was inside that man's warehouse.'

She catches it with slight surprise, but no sooner have her fingers grazed it that the look on her face dissolves from surprise into blankess.

 _What is this?_ In waves come loneliness, hunger, resignation, honor, and, worst of them all, the acute longing for flight. But they last mere, fleeting seconds. She blinks.

'There is something… melancholy about this scale…'

She lets herself fall back onto the grass, this time.

Van turns his head, to look at her. 'Melancholy?'

'Yes,' she breathes, looking up at the patches of blue through the willow's leaves and branches: 'The sky is really far away, isn't it?'

.

.

They start going back when dusk falls and a star or two appear near the horizon, to the east where the sea is.

'Do you think you could've found out more in that warehouse, if that man hadn't shown up?' Hitomi asks.

Van shakes his head. 'It was empty. That was all there was.'

'It's a start, though,' she thinks aloud.

'Yeah,' he answers, with a slight smile, 'It's a start…'

.

.

.

 _Twilight._

 _Fastly, the light of day is fading. Soon, there is but an ember-glow tingeing the horizon, but it is mostly obscured by the towering mountains that surround the valley of the city, made into tenebrous giants by the darkness._

 _A man in a room invaded by shadows could see all of this through a stupendous window- not an exquisitely framed one, but one stately enough to belong in a castle- but he is sitting by a desk, his head buried in his crossed arms._

 _Together with him in the room stands a dream version of Hitomi, who looks on, petrified. She doesn't dare make a sound: something in the air hangs heavy, asphyxiatingly so, with sorrow._

 _The room seems to be a private study. Dusk shadows shroud the bookcases that line the walls, that reach up to the ceiling. The man is unmoving- Hitomi thinks, at first, that he may be asleep. Who is he? Why is she here? Dread grows in her stomach at the thought of seeing the fire again._

 _She gazes at him. The pale-bluish light that comes through the window reminds her of winter evenings and the scent of pinetree wood. It no longer can betray any color, but she sees how the man's skin and hair look very pale. He has hands of long, bony fingers. His shirt_ might _be green. His shoulders are broad. His shoulders are shaking._

 _She realizes he's crying, not sleeping. The sorrow she perceived before becomes focused, overwhelming. She can't pry her eyes from the lonely, weeping figure. It breaks her heart._

 _With hesitation, she takes a step towards him. Her feet shuffles, ever so softly, grazing against the wooden floorboards._

 _'Who's there?' the man says, softly, steadily, not looking up. Does she know that voice?_

 _She gasps mutely in the dream, and then she wakes up, mutely gasping._

 _._

Dazed, she sits up. Beholds the familiar darkness of her room, and slowly becomes orientated again. A small sob, like a quiet whimper, escapes her lips before she can process it, and, soon, she's crying. She's got all this sorrow bottled up inside her chest, as if someone very close to her were gone. She cries and cries and cries, but somewhere deep she knows this sadness isn't hers.

'Hitomi…' a concerned voice says. It's Van.

He who would normally ask permission before coming into someone else's room, foregoes it this time, and in two silent strides he's sitting on the floor, next to her futon. He keeps his distance respectful, but places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

'Tell me what you saw.'

She hiccups softly, she nods. The warmth on her shoulder will anchor her, pull her back to herself. She's so, so grateful.

'It must have been Fanelia, again,' she says, punctuated by sobs. 'There was a man, and he was crying. Oh God,' she rasps, burying her face in her hands, 'So much sadness. There was so, so much sadness…'

Van's strong hand gently squeezes her shoulder, unsure of what other manner he has to show her support. His chest feels tight: still, he can't bring himself to ask her more: he'd hate himself if his anxiety turned him cruel.

'Beautiful fingers,' she says, very quietly, under her breath, and to him it feels like she can read his mind. Her voice is unusually raspy with tears, 'Very broad shoulders. Pale skin. Light hair. He wore a shirt, or maybe a tunic… green, it could have been. So was that man I saw.'

Each word she says makes time for Van drag on, and when she finishes, it feels like it's stopped completely; and that sadness that hangs in the air, that sadness becomes Van's own.

'That's my brother, Hitomi,' he says, numbly, 'That's Folken.'

'Folken,' she repeats. Silence takes over.

.

.

.

Her alarm clock the following morning sounded like the shrill screeching of a banshee. Mechanically, she turned it off, and sat up on her futon.

On the floor, next to her, but not really close, was Van. Asleep, he'd frowned while the alarm clock rang, but as soon as it was turned off, his face relaxed again.

 _He stayed…?_ A wave of sorrow overpowered a budding sense of embarrassment: in scattered flashes, she remembered the dream, waking up, Van knowing of his brother's state and falling into bereaved silence. But at some point she'd fallen asleep, of emotional exhaustion, and she wondered if he had, too.

Maybe after all they'd been through up to that point, everything that had happened the previous night had been a turning point, after which it all became too much. _What will you find when you return, Van?_

She draped her comforter over his sleeping form, and, not really hungry, got dressed and set out, early, to work.

.

.

.

'Good morning, Ms. Kanzaki!' the doorman greeted her, 'It's fortunate that you are early, because I had word of the principal, that he wanted to discuss something with you in private.'

She greeted the man good morning and thanked him with her usual friendliness, but made her way upstairs to the principal's office with a heavy heart. She felt that she wasn't going to like what the principal had to say.

She was right.

'Ms. Kanzaki, I'm concerned. Your performance has left something to be desired, lately. Is there anything you would like to inform me of, that is affecting your work here in the school?' The principal looked equally miffed and concerned.

'I… eh. I am deeply sorry about that, sir,' she began, gloomily noting that, while she'd painstakingly crafted Van's back-story, she had no excuse for her own conduct, 'There is a situation… a personal situation… a member of my family is not doing good… I… I am not doing well at handling it. I apologize.'

'It's understandable,' said the principal, 'Perhaps you would like some days off to sort yourself out?'

Hitomi stalled. 'I… I don't know, sir. It's a situation that seems that will be going to be of… ah… It's going to last longer than I… we… anticipated.'

If the man noticed Hitomi's subtle incoherences, he most likely attributed them to her emotional state. He said nothing, but: 'I see… Ms. Kanzaki, I must insist. I would rather you took some days off than upset the students. It's easier for us to schedule a replacement than cover for sudden absences, bear that in mind.'

'Yes, sir…'

'Please, do not be headstrong,' he said, on a kinder note, 'If you do need to take days off, just say so. We are only human beings.'

She managed a small smile. 'Yes, sir… Thank you.'

.

As she left the principal's office, an image flashed before her eyes: a man, sitting in a darkened study, head buried in his arms, weeping.

The image was no sooner come than it was gone, but a lonely tear fell down her cheek.

.

.

.

* * *

 _This author is of the mind that being King of Fanelia is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone._

 _Intrigued? Annoyed? Worried about the dragon? Drop me a review! ;D_

 _Read you guys soon!_


	7. What trascends

_Holy dragons, guys. 15 reviews? I'm thrilled! It's what got this chapter ready so fast, it was so damn motivating! Yay!_

 _Enjoy :D_

* * *

 _._

 _._

As she turned the lights off in her small office and closed the door, ready to go home, she heard someone call call for her:

'Hitomi! Hitomi! Wait up!'

Hitomi's day hadn't been the greatest. Folken's lingering feelings of sadness hadn't ever completely dissipated, and, as she turned around to look at whomever called her, she prayed it wouldn't hold her up too long from going early to bed.

Trotting towards her, down a student-empty corridor, came Natsuko, the Creative Writing Workshop teacher. In some ways, she reminded Hitomi of her lifelong friend Yukari, and they had become something close to friends in the two years Hitomi had been working in the school.

'Ah, thank goodness!' Natsuko exclaimed, catching her breath like one not used to running, once she'd reached Hitomi, 'I thought for a second I wasn't gonna catch you before you left…' she paused, and studied her co-worker's face for a moment. 'You don't look so good… Did you catch a cold?'

'Um… probably…' Hitomi replied, evasively, '… but I'm fine, don't worry.'

'Right…' Natsuko sounded unconvinced, 'Well… I need your help, Hitomi! It's a crucial situation, and only you can do something about it!'

'Me?'

Together, they started walking towards the school's exit.

'Yeah, you see… remember Katsu, right? My good-for-nothing boyfriend…' She didn't sound like she meant that, though, 'Well. I've… I think he might propose soon…' She nervously looked at Hitomi from the corner of her eye.

'That's great!', Hitomi answered with a tired smile, with the acute feeling that she knew where the conversation was going.

'Yeah, I know, but…' nervously, again, she searched for the best way of saying it, 'I've got some doubts… I'm really confused… and I don't want the moment to catch me unaware, you know? I want to give the best answer I can when the time comes!'

'I see…'

'Hitomi!' Natsuko said, stopping in her walk, to look into her co-worker's eyes with determination, 'Would you ask the Tarot cards? Could you do it for me?'

'Natsuko…' she considered it for some seconds, 'Yes. I'll do a reading for you. But I can't do it today, I'm sorry. I'm feeling really drained.'

'What do you mean?'

'You've got to be on the best condition, because a quality reading depends on the strong energy of the person doing it.'

'Oh, yes, of course…' Natsuko said, with deflated optimism, 'Do you think it could be soon, though?'

'We can try tomorrow at lunch break,' Hitomi suggested, with a strained smile, knowing beforehand it was not a great idea.

'Yay!' Natsuko cheered, excited. But Hitomi sighed.

.

.

.

Hitomi arrived home exhausted and emotionally drained, and collapsed onto her futon. Through her mind the thought danced, that she hadn't talked to her family for a long while now. She made a mental note to call soon. Then, she closed her eyes and fell dead asleep.

.

.

.

'Were you here last night?' Hitomi asked Van, the following morning. He looked up from his book and nodded, a frown barely perceptible on his brow.

'I was. And you overslept again.'

Sleepily distracted, she looked out of the window, until his words sank in.

'I _WHAT_!?'

.

.

.

Later, as she profusely apologized for being three hours late to work to the coordinator of the sports department, the principal's words from the day before resonated in her thoughts: _'Take some days off',_ and, ' _We're only human…'_.

She was starting to suspect that maybe some therapy sessions would also do her good, but she was going through something whose tales no one would honestly believe. All the help she could expect would probably be in the form of medication.

She'd rather leave things as they were, and brace herself.

.

During lunch break, as expected, Natsuko found her.

'Hey, I heard you were late again, Hitomi… are you sure you're okay?'

'Yeah,' Hitomi answered, sheepishly, 'A personal situation's got me distracted, but I'm confident it's going to be done with soon.' _Wishfully hopeful is more likely,_ her thoughts corrected, grimly. '… In any case, I'm feeling way better today. We can do the reading now, if you want.'

Natsuko regarded her with skepticism, but her eagerness overpowered her concern.

'All righ! Let's do it!'.

.

It was eerie, but, when it came to predictions, she felt she was starting to be always right. She could sense a foreboding sort of certainty it in her core, and as Hitomi drew card after card, their meanings intertwined to form the outlook of an ordinary marriage: a honeymoon in Bali, two children, a miscarriage, old age, and overall happiness. And she _knew_ all this would come to happen.

'If you marry him, you and him will be very happy together,' she said, finally, with a slight smile.

Natsuko was ecstatic.

'And do you… oh… do you know _when_ he will… you know…?'

'Before next week, most likely.'

'Oh, Hitomi!' she exclaimed, impulsively hugging her, 'You're amazing! You're almost magical!'

.

.

.

 _'Van'._

He's in the park again, under the great, welcoming willow. The afternoon is very pleasantly warm, and lying barefoot on the grass, lost in a book, he almost can pretend he is back home. The distant sounds of children playing, and car sirens blaring, and the overhead humming of a distant plane, however, ground him in his current situation: a foreigner stranded on a strange country on the Mystic Moon, where people live in towers and dragons do not exist, and there is an ocean and no forest.

Here, where there is the grim certainty of a destiny brimming with schadenfreude and the distant memory of home, and the wilderness. He sighs.

 _'Van'._

With a frown, he dismisses the thought that someone is calling him. Focuses instead on what the meaning is of how he is behaving. Hitomi is becoming more and more his safe place, the one person he can interact with, and the one thing that might make sense of all this mad searching for something elusive, that is the way back to Fanelia, which might - or very well might not- be connected to that dragon; and, so far, a tiny trace of the dragon is all he's found, at all.

 _No matter what, I can't let myself be discouraged_ , he thinks.

But he wonders, deep down, if he might not be starting to rely on Hitomi too much. He considers what he might gain if he chooses to part ways, but-

 _'Van.'_ Freezing, his breath hitches. He can hear it clear now. _'Please, be safe.'_

'B… brother?'

 _'Ruhm says that strong emotions have the power to connect people. I have tried in vain all these days, but I will not give up. Van, if you can hear me, please be safe.'_

'Brother!' Van calls, and he can't distinguish whether he is thinking or talking out loud, 'Brother! I'm fine- I'm on the Mystic Moon! Brother, can you hear me? Brother!'

He gets no answer.

'Brother!'

.

.

.

It's very late when Van returns to the apartment, and he finds a plate of home-made food on the table for him.

'I thought you didn't cook,' he observes.

Hitomi, in her most loved pair of pajamas, looks up at him from her computer with a slight frown.

'I do, just not so usually… I really needed to get my mind off things today… though it didn't really work.'

He takes a bite of a delightfully golden baked potato wedge. 'It's very good,' he appreciates.

'You should really heat it up.'

Van shrugs, and takes another bite.

'Oh, you're such a guy,' she complains under her breath, and all but snatches the plate, to microwave it a while. Rather than being annoyed, Van quirks an eyebrow and shakes his head, oddly entertained. Then he pauses, and considers what has just happened: this girl, with her antics, just unwittingly lifted him out from the dark mood that has been with him since he heard his brother's voice that afternoon.

He doesn't draw any conclusions from that, though, because a smoking plate is placed before him. Hitomi perches on the chair opposite him, and with a little gleam of triumph in her eye watches the little smile that forms on his lips, and accepts it as her victory.

'Told you it'd be better.'

.

.

'You may think I'm crazy- goodness, even I think I might be crazy- but I heard my brother's voice today.'

'What?' she asked.

'I was reading… I heard him call out. He told me to be safe.'

Hitomi could easily perceive his sadness. 'What else did he say?'

He side-glanced at her. She appeared to believe him…

'That he'd been trying to reach me for a while. That Ruhm told him strong thoughts can sometimes connect people...'

She frowned. 'Ruhm?'

'A family friend,' he expanded.

'Do you think… do you think it could work the other way around? That _your_ thoughts can maybe reach him?'

His eyes darkened, heavy with that sadness she'd felt before. 'I've been trying to do that the whole afternoon. It doesn't work.'

She placed a friendly hand on his shoulder, slightly troubled by his frustration. 'If it took time for him, maybe it'll take time for you too. Don't give up. It's worth the try, right?'

.

.

She phones home, that night. She doesn't remember when the last time was that she spent an hour on the phone talking to her mother. Oh, how she misses them- her father and mother. With her little brother studying in university in Europe, and herself living in a city that's far away, her family sometimes feels to her like it's become a little broken. Maybe that's just life, but it suddenly doesn't feel like it's fair. Or reasonable: why would anyone want to choose so much loneliness, over so much love?

For growth, like she did, or for the chance at a better life, like her brother did. But, yet, her mother is so eager to talk to her, to know about her life, her work, her friends, even what she had for dinner. It's not fair. A wave of regret accuses Hitomi of being too selfish.

And so, she promises her mother she'll phone them more often- but she doesn't promise to visit soon.

.

.

 _A handful of pallid stars._

 _That's all Van sees, lingering over the darkness that exists above the ocean._

 _He's standing on the concrete ridge of an industrial pier. The water below him hides the scents of many fish. Octopi. Sharks, dolphins, whales. He can even smell the peculiar stench of two decomposing human bodies, too, rising from the deep._

 _Such darkness, tonight. And the air is starting to become warmer with every day that passes- the summer must be coming. He remembers it, the summer. Ah, the delightful summer in the forest. Running and running and running among the greenest, lushest leaves; and then, when legs tire, flying so, so high… Oh, how he misses flying._

 _But, oh, no: these are not Van's memories- these are the dragon's memories, and that is when awareness kicks in and lets Van know he is only a guest here, once again, and that he is seeing the world through this dragon's eyes, experiencing it through its senses. It is a rare feeling- Van is here like a guest in this dragon's consciousness, and he can feel the dragon knows he is there, with it, living together._

 _Strangest of it all is, it does not seem to mind him._

 _Van can't wake up, although he is not sure he wants to, and the dragon is still reminiscing the flight. The delightful feeling of the shifting air currents beneath his wings, the unbound sensation of freedom and wilderness._

 _'Why can't you fly?' Van asks._

 _The dragon doesn't answer with words, but Van somehow suddenly knows it can't do it, yet. There is something to risk it cannot risk, yet._

 _'I need to find you. I need to go home. And you too. We don't belong here,' he explains, hopeful._

 _But the dragon lets him know it's not the time, yet._

 _'I know you miss your home. I miss mine, as well.'_

 _But the dragon says it's not time to go back home, yet. And it is not distracted. In his chest, Van feels the dragon's growing need to be airborne as if it were his own: he feels how this talk of home brings so many memories, and he's been so lonely, in this foreign world…_

 _The dragon tentatively unfurls its long, membranous wings. But the longing does not relent, and they itch. They itch for flight. They flap once, reflexively. Twice, reflexively, too._

 _But the third flap is strong, and intentional, and lifts its body off the ground, and as the dragon's raw instinct and pent up longing take over, Van feels how, numbingly, his awareness is pulled apart from the dragon's._

He wakes up, covered in sweat, and sits up, completely dazed, dizzied, and confused as to where exactly he is.

He's in Hitomi's apartment, on the futon next to the window, and the floor surrounding him is speckled with feathers.

.

.

.

* * *

 _ **whitefeathers** : I'm dying to tell you about the dragons but that would be the hugest spoiler ever. I'll be enigmatic and say that I align with the Chinese POV._

 _Thanks a lot to_ _ **Meghanna Starsong** and **pinkdynamite** for reviewing! :) **Hana-Liatris** , you little mind reader you..._

 _._

 _Be very intrigued about what's going to happen next! I'd love to read your theories :D_


End file.
